Pickup Game
by ghost-orchid
Summary: PostAlien Resurrection. Oneshot. Call and Johner get together for a game of basketball...and other things.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the characters from _Alien Resurrection_.

**Summary:** Post-_Alien_ _Resurrection_, Johner and Call get together for a game of basketball...among other things. One-shot. I thought this lack of Call/Johner fic was a lack that needed to be addressed.

Pickup Game

Call brushed the bangs off her face and lined up her shot. The basketball felt warm and solid in her hands, the only thing around her anymore that seemed to hold substance. She herself seemed more of a phantom day by day. With a quick shake of her head, she dismissed the stray sad thought and launched the ball at the hoop. With a decisive clang it ricocheted off the backboard and bounced along the court, its bounces echoing off the walls. At least she didn't have to worry about anyone coming along and trying to join in. Everyone who lived in the building seemed to work the day shift somewhere, unlike her. She worked night shift at the spacedocks, operating a loader. It didn't take much of her skill or her intelligence, so that left her mind far too much time to wander, and where it chose to wander was the U.S.M. _Auriga_, and to the _Betty. _All those from the _Betty _who had died--Elgyn, Christie, Hillard--had died because of her, her grand mission to save the world from the alien creatures. Well, as far as she knew she had wiped out the aliens--at least the samples that U.S. Military Systems had--but who knew if another wave of aliens would make its way to Earth and wipe them out, or if another ship would come into contact with another of their derelict vessels? And why had the machines who built her given the capacity for feeling guilt? If any had been left, she would have asked them. But they were all dead, dead as the android Annalee Call who had served on an old freighter that had once hijacked a shipment of miners. She was Sabra Hillard now, documented human, and any physical differences between herself and the dead woman had been corrected via her access to the central registry computer on Earth.

In the twenty months since the _Auriga _had crashed on Earth and the _Betty _had made its relatively inconspicuous landing, she had lost touch with the others. Ripley had left Paris for parts unknown and then, she had heard, been captured by U.S. Military Systems, vanishing into the depths of that bureaucracy, never to be heard from again. Vriess had gone back offplanet, explaining to her that he never could feel comfortable in a place with this much open space. "I need those steel walls and that artificial g, Call. It's just wrong for me to stay here." This loss had hit her hard; after all, he had been her closest friend aboard the freighter. For a while she had thought there might be something more between them, some romantic possibility despite the fact that she was an android and he had lost the use of his legs, but nothing had come of it and her hopes had turned to dust. As for Johner, he and she had never been close. Hell, they'd never even been friendly. Their interaction had been limited mostly to his casual attempts at getting her into his bed and his red-faced fury when said attempts failed or she did something else that he didn't like. But she thought he'd been a decent guy underneath. Maybe she should have fucked him, though, since it looked like he had been the last chance she had for actual physical contact with a man. The men who worked with her on the docks were off-limits, since sleeping with any one of them meant giving up her credibility as a fellow worker and becoming just another slut. The apartment complex she lived in catered mainly to married couples and families, so unless she wanted a messy entanglement with a married man, she kept to herself. It was a good thing that sexual desire wasn't an important part of her programming, so she ignored the occasional twinge and devoted herself to work and solitude. Quiet tenant, pays her bills on time, likes to play basketball on the private court while other people are at work. She faded a little more each day, lost a bit more of Annalee Call and could find no substance in her new identity as Sabra Hillard to replace it. What was she but a ghost, a revenant left over from the android recall that should have lain down and died? She had nothing and no one. She should have died on the _Auriga_ and wished every night she had, after the nightmares jolted her from sleep, screams still locked in her throat.

Ripley had taught her how to play basketball, for relaxation in the weeks after the crash when all the _Betty's _survivors lived in the same apartment and the nightmares came every time she closed her eyes. "Play till you're exhausted," Ripley told her, tossing the basketball at her. "When you've run yourself down that far, the dreams won't come." That might have been true for humans, but synthetics functioned far beyond human capacity, and so the nightmares remained. Call was able to school herself so that her screams stayed trapped in her throat and woke up no one, leaving Ripley and Johner and Vriess unaware of her anguish. Still, she liked basketball. It reminded her of them. She realized she had been standing there, staring at the motionless basketball for quite a while. Good thing it was her day off, or she'd be late to work already. With a chuckle that sounded rusty to her own ears, she retrieved it and dribbled it down the court toward the basket, evading imaginary opponents.

From his concealed position on the catwalk above the basketball court, Johner stared down at Call, playing her lonely game of basketball. He took a sip from his flask and let his eyes follow her. He hadn't seen her face-to-face since Vriess signed on aboard the _Wanderer_ six months ago. No reason to, really; she'd made her feelings for him quite clear, or her lack of them. But she was an itch under his skin and that annoyed the hell out of him. He didn't miss her, far from it. He just wanted to make sure she wasn't up to anything that might rebound on him or on Vriess the way she had been aboard the _Betty. _For the pastweek he'd been watching her, so quiet she'd never realized anyone was there, even with her android senses. If she was hatching any schemes, he couldn't tell from what she did. She had an air about her that he could almost call "lost." Call arrived at her job on the loading docks at four p.m., took her first break at six, her lunch at eight, her last break at ten, and came home no later than one a.m., never stopping to have a drink at any of the bars afterward. Usually she slept until ten or ten-thirty, then had breakfast and ran any errands she had. When she got back from those errands, she played basketball for an hour or two until it was time to get ready for work again. From what Johner saw, she had no friends among her neighbors and nothing but acquaintances at work. And she didn't have a man. As far as he knew, she'd never had a man, with the exception--maybe--of Vriess. When he'd hinted about it to the other man, Vriess had only nailed him with a look of disbelief and a hint of laughter. "Johner, it's not like that with Call and me. I know it's something she may have thought of, and maybe I thought it too, but it's just not right for us. Besides, she's a synthetic."

"Jesus Christ, man, what does that matter? She's fucking beautiful. Probably knows how to do things that would make you think you died and went to heaven. Those robot programmers were too thorough to miss something like that."

Vriess had smiled a wry smile. "You've always had your eye on her since the day she came aboard ship. Is it just that you're too stubborn to give up or too--never mind."

"Too stupid, man? That what you're trying to say?" He'd been ready to tear Vriess a new one for that, legs or no, but the cripple had just laughed and said, "Stupid wasn't the quality I was thinking of."

Too old, he might have been about to say. Even if Call actually had been the age she looked, he had a good twenty years on her, as the gray in his hair proved, and he wasn't what anyone would call a handsome man. He might have been somewhat attractive before that bar fight, but the scar it left put an end to that. Absently he traced the horizontal Y on his left cheek. When women fucked him now, they wanted it rough and intense and dangerous, and he gave them that. When he screamed at them, they got wet. When he had screamed at Call, it just made her mad. Christ, he didn't want to make her mad; he wanted to fuck her until she couldn't remember her own name. The words he said just came out wrong and they wound up yelling at each other, then he wound up going back to his quarters to jerk off thinking about her underneath him, writhing, those big brown eyes looking straight into his when she came. He closed his eyes with the image of her slim body, naked under his, and found himself beginning to get hard. "Enough of this," he muttered to himself.

Call shifted her weight from foot to foot, dribbling the basketball, and shot it at the hoop. Obliging, it fell through and she walked forward to pick it up.

"Well, well. Look what we have here," said a voice behind her.

She knew who it was before she turned around. That familiar whiskey rasp sent a shiver through her, which she kept out of her voice. Was she actually glad to see him? No, couldn't be. "Hello, Johner. How have you been?"

He stood there, leaning against the entrance to the court, in his usual olive-drab T-shirt and jeans, running his eyes up and down her body the way he always did. But this time she wished she'd worn something a little more--well, _there_--not cutoff work pants and a cropped shirt that left most of her midriff bare. Had Johner ever seen this much of her skin?

Call had let her hair grow out of that boy cut she'd had aboard ship, and it barely brushed her chin now, but her face was the same, that narrow oval with its delicate bones and soft pink lips. The rest of her seemed thinner than before he had left. Was she eating? Why did he fucking care? "I've been okay. Just got back from a short run a couple of weeks ago. I've been meaning to check up on you, see how you're doing. Who you're doing."

It surprised a laugh out of her. "I thought it was the tall ones you couldn't lay off."

"I can't stay away from the little-bitty ones, either." Johner smiled back at her, not mocking, and Call remembered she liked his smile, even though she had never seen it often. "Like you. I've never been able to stay away from you." He pushed himself off the doorjamb and walked onto the court.

"In spite of all my best efforts, huh?" She flipped the basketball from hand to hand, then tossed it to him.

He caught the ball, dribbled it a few times, then stopped. "I don't think they were your best efforts." Johner shot the ball back at her and she was so surprised she almost dropped it.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're a bright girl. I think you can figure it out." He stared at her and she found she couldn't hold his gaze. Clear blue eyes, the only purity about him. To hide her nerves, she dribbled the ball a few times, then pivoted and threw it at the basket. It hit the rim, rolled around twice, then fell through the net. "Two points," he said.

"I don't keep score. No reason to. Normally I play alone."

"You shouldn't have to do anything alone." Something trembled in the air, and Call had only started to grasp what it was when Johner moved. "Take it out. Let's play."

She moved behind the line and bounced the ball a few times before tossing the ball to him, then moving to guard him. She wasn't tall enough to be an effective guard, since he towered over her by almost a foot, so it wasn't a surprise when he got past her and jump-shot the ball into the hoop. When it was her turn, she absolutely could not get past him, and when she went for the basket, Johner grabbed it out of the air and made the shot himself. Call started laughing, something she hadn't done in months. It did feel good to be with someone for a change, someone she didn't have to hide herself from. He knew she was an android, and he would never tell. Did she actually trust him? They resumed play and he broke her concentration by twisting around her and shooting the ball. It sank through without even touching the rim. "Two points, Call. You need to pay more attention to me."

"That's never been a problem. I think you must be loud when you're sleeping."

"Want to find out?" He picked the ball up and threw it back to her.

She stayed motionless, looking at him. "There is something I'd like to find out. If you really wanted me to sleep with you, why did you keep behaving in a way that guaranteed I wouldn't?" He didn't say anything, just stood in front of her, alert and relaxed at the same time. "Sweetness works a lot better than a hair-trigger temper."

"I wouldn't hurt you. How could you even think that?" He tried to cover up his own hurt with anger. What the hell was he even doing here? "Jesus, forget it. I'll see you around."

He tried to move past her, but she blocked him with her body, the basketball falling to the metal surface of the court and bouncing away. "Johner, stop." Call realized she had hurt his feelings and reached out for him. Her hands slid along his arms, the first time she'd ever touched his bare skin. He tried to shake her off, but she pressed herself into him, putting her palms on either side of his face and holding them there. His hands moved reflexively to her waist. Only after he'd frozen did she realize how intimate a position she'd put them in, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was erasing that look in his eyes. "Don't leave. Listen to me. I'm sorry. I know you wouldn't hurt me. There must have been a thousand times back on the _Betty _when you could have tried to force me, and you never did. I trust you not to hurt me. I trust you." Only when she felt the tension in him relax did she know he had heard her. She released her hold on his face and tried to step away, but his hands tightened at the small of her back and pulled her in closer.

One second they had been playing basketball and arguing, the next second she was in his arms. His mind vapor-locked over that fact, the soft warmth of her against him, tight enough so he could feel her breasts, his hands resting just above the waistband of her cutoffs, on the smooth flesh of her back. It was the first time he'd put his hands on her, though God knew it wasn't the first time he'd thought about it, not by at least a thousand. And she had told him she trusted him. For a second he was afraid just his touch might hurt her, she was so tiny, but that thought dissolved into nothing. If Call was anything, she was tough. She'd taken a bullet in the chest right in front of him and come through with no trouble, frail as she might look. With an effort he pushed that memory away, the emptiness it had left in him when he thought for those few minutes that Call was dead. The damage Wren's bullet had done to her had been repaired shortly after they landed, but she still bore scars. Without thinking he lifted her into the air and backed her into the wall, her legs sliding around his waist as he pushed her T-shirt up enough to uncover the round, raised tissue that marked her near-death, and pressed his mouth against it. The scent of her surrounded him: honeysuckle and sandalwood and female.

Call shuddered with surprise at the feel of his lips against her but couldn't find enough breath in her lungs for a protest. And, to be honest with herself, she didn't want to stop him. Something clicked in her brain when he kissed her scar, his tongue laving the keloid tissues, and she sought frantically for an answer. Some unknown subroutine kicking in? Or was it just his honest need now, not the games the two of them had played before where he advanced and she retreated, mannered as any minuet? No, something different operated now; damned if she knew what it was. "Johner," she whispered, embarrassed by how much like a moan his name came out. How could he affect her like this now, when she had never had an inkling of this attraction? But it slipped away from her, held no importance. Nothing was important but him, his heat, his body.

He lifted his mouth from her, his breath against her wet skin making her gasp. "It's okay. Nobody can see." For a moment he rested his cheek against her belly and the scrape of his week's worth of beard sent a thrill of sensation through her. What would that feel like against the inside of her thigh? Call tried to bring herself back to reality: they were pressed up against the wall of the basketball court of her apartment complex, fully dressed at the moment but that could--would--change, and anyone could walk by and find them, but those few wisps of sanity faded in the face of her desire. Desire? Was that what this was? She had never wanted any man before, including him, but now this heat pervaded her veins, her flesh, until she felt as if she glowed with its power. What had changed? The memory of Ripley touched her mind, the real Ripley who had died on Fiorina 161, not the clone she had met on the _Auriga. _The lake of liquid fire surrounded her, Call, but unlike Ripley, plunging into it would mean life, not death.

Any attempt at resistance her rational mind might have made was destroyed when Johner pushed her T-shirt all the way up, baring her breasts with their aching, hardened nipples. For a few seconds he stared at them, a man dying of thirst regarding an oasis, thencovered them with his hands, his palms rubbing the stiff peaks gently. "Does that feel good?" he asked. Good wasn't the word for it. All she could manage in reply was a moan. He smiled a little. "I'll take that as a yes." He let his fingers drift over the slopes of her breasts, slow, teasing the soft skin before grazing the pebble hardness of her nipples. She couldn't hold back sounds of pleasure and wondered how a man as big and brutal as Johner was could possess such grace in his hands. "I want you to feel good, Call. If I do anything you don't like, tell me to stop and I will. Do you trust me to do that?"

"Yes." It emerged as a sigh.

"Have you ever--" He paused, seeming almost embarrassed. Seeing this alien emotion on his face served to put her more at ease. "That is, have you ever...uh..been with a man before? I'm just asking because I need to know this for, you know, the future. I don't want to hurt you."

This was one discussion she'd never imagined having with him, much less having it while pressed up against a brick wall, half-naked with her legs around him. When had she locked her ankles at the small of his back? It was her turn to feel embarrassed, but she didn't move. He was so warm...She shook off the thought and answered him. "No. I have all the necessary programming, but there hasn't been any reason for me to be with anyone."

So she really hadn't been with Vriess. Good. "You don't get lonely? Or horny?" He looked at her breasts, then leaned into her and flicked his tongue against one of her nipples. Her hands went to the back of his head to keep it there and he obliged, sucking as much of her breast as he could in his mouth. Call's brain registered: the feel of his short, stubbly hair under her palms, the tension in his muscles, the warm wetness of his mouth, the fact that she could feel the effects of his caressing tongue between her legs, the tingling, the aching burn. When Johner released her from his mouth, he gave her his usual cocky grin. "I think you're fooling yourself, little Call."

"What?" She could barely talk, couldn't think at all, not with him touching her, not with the unfamiliar throbbing between her thighs.

He let her slide down his body, the cotton of his T-shirt rasping against her bare belly and breasts every inch of the way to the ground. Inside she almost screamed with disappointment. She should have known--it was some mean game of his, to prove that she really did want to fuck him despite all her protests. Well, he had his proof and she hoped he was happy. "You think you'd only fuck someone if you had a reason to? If you don't get hot, where's your reason? You want to think you're a real synth, all circuitry and ice, but they made you as close to human as they had the ability to."

Call wanted to step away, put distance between them until she got control of herself back, but he still pinned her between the wall and his body. "There are other reasons for being with someone. I'm not programmed to get hot, Johner." Which brought up the question of why she _was, _in fact, hot, but she decided to table that question for later examination.

"Oh, no. You're a perfect, logical creation, all thinking, cold." Without warning he slid his hand into her cutoffs and found the tiny pearl of nerve endings without a second's worth of fumbling. A shocked gasp escaped her at the contact. "Naughty, Call. You aren't wearing any panties." She cried out as he caressed her there, the unbearable pleasure of it filling her. Her body developed a mind of its own and arched toward him, the source of her need. God, she wanted to let him take her right there. If he wanted it, she'd let him do it, if only he'd keep touching her like that. "Yeah, this feels cold, right here. Like ice, in fact." He tipped her head back so they were looking into each other's eyes. "Show me more of that ice, girl."

Moans broke out of her throat, and she couldn't seem to close her eyes as his fingers kept working on her, drawing out the sensations until she writhed under his touch, gasping for air. Oh God, it was so good, she couldn't stand it, she was going to fall apart any second now, any second now as the pleasure built into an unbearable tension so intense it terrified her because she knew it would kill her. "What is this, I don't know this," she whimpered just before the tension reached its peak and bloomed into an ecstasy that left her wailing, her mind drowning in her newly discovered physicality, her fingers digging into his shoulders to anchor herself in reality, so hard she knew she must have hurt him.

He waited until she regained some calm, his hand still resting between her legs, then leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "That was an orgasm, Call. You just came for me." God, she had been beautiful, as beautiful as any fantasy he'd ever had of her. And he had been the first man to touch her this way, the only man who knew what she looked like when she came, the brown eyes glazing over with passion, the pink mouth dropping open with surprise as her body did something she had never expected.

Her forehead rested against his chest and she doubted she had the strength to stand. Every cell of her body buzzed with the aftermath of his attentions. "Do you want to go upstairs to your apartment now?" His voice rumbled through her.

She managed to lift her head and look into those beautiful blue eyes. "Yes, Johner. The answer's always yes."

He chuckled. "You don't know what you're getting into, saying a thing like that."

Call rubbed herself against his body. A hiss escaped him as she came into contact with the indisputable evidence of his wanting. Yes, she definitely had plans for him. "I think I might," she replied. "Take me upstairs now."

Gritting his teeth for a second to keep his control, he pulled her shirt back down over her breasts. Her legs shook a little, but then she led him off the basketball court. When the elevator doors slid open, she let one of her hands slide down his arm to take his hand. It was an odd gesture for her to make, almost romantic. He decided he liked the feel of her hand inside his.

Her apartment was just as he remembered from when he'd visited her here with Vriess and Ripley, as bare as the day she'd moved in, no personal effects, only the furnishings that had been supplied with the apartment. Nothing to indicate that anyone with a past lived here. Something inside him clenched at the sight of this sterility. Call should have more than this in her life.

The door closed and locked behind them as Johner did something she had never expected him to do. He kissed her, one hand on the back of her neck, the other hand going to the side of her face, his fingers tracing its lines from temple to the hinge of her jaw. Her lips parted under the pressure of his and his tongue slid into her mouth. It almost felt more intimate than what had happened on the basketball court. In a way it was just as off-kilter as the rest of their relationship. From the first moment he touched her Call had been experiencing an interior mutiny, the synth brain screaming disapproval at the sudden riot of the body, but it was the simple fact of the softness of Johner's lips on hers that undid her, the gentleness she had never believed him capable of. She sighed into his mouth and surrendered herself to him. It didn't matter that he would leave her in the morning and she would probably never see him again, that he would treat her afterward as if she were disposable. This was her one chance to feel real, something that had been slipping away from her ever since their arrival on Earth, and she would not give it up just because she knew nothing but pain could result from it. She would touch him, she would kiss him, she would fuck him, and then she would suffer and survive. It would be worth the anguish later to have these memories.

He felt the change in her and deepened the kiss as her arms wound themselves around his neck. For long moments they stood in her living room, lost in passion, before Johner loosened her arms from him and grasped the bottom of her T-shirt, pulling it off over her head. "Your bedroom's down the hall, right?" She nodded and started to slide off her cutoffs. "No time for that now," he told her, then picked her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

"Be careful, Johner. This is nearly romantic. You'll ruin your reputation."

He grinned and set her down on the bed. "Oh, I think it'll survive. Lie back." She did as he said and he took her right foot in his hand, untying the laces of her shoe and slipping it off her foot. He caressed it, the softness of the arch, bone under the thin skin on top, calluses on the bottom, smiling a little when he hit a ticklish spot and she convulsed, repeating his action with her other foot. Then he unfastened her cutoffs and whispered, "Lift up," and slipped them over her hips and down her legs.

"It hardly seems fair," she murmured.

"What?"

"I'm naked and you're completely dressed." He didn't say anything, looking down at her with an unreadable expression. Call lost her patience. "Take your clothes off. I want to see you naked."

"You're such a flatterer." He straddled her, his knees on either side of her thighs, and pulled his T-shirt off over his head, tossing it to one side. Her eyes took on an appreciative gleam as she ran her gaze over the hard slabs of muscle in his chest and stomach, the smooth rippling of bicep and tricep and deltoid as he flung his shirt away. The human form had never held much interest for her before this, but she couldn't stop staring at him. Johner wasn't beautiful by any standards she knew of, but she couldn't imagine doing this with any other man. The idea of sex seemed to have fused with the idea of him to the point where they were indivisible. She moved her hands over his stomach, moving upward to his chest, where she brushed them lightly over his flat nipples, teasing them into hardness. He let out a contented noise that almost reminded her of a purr, then leaned down to her and began dropping little kisses over her face. A moan escaped her and she tried to reach up and unfasten his belt, but he put a hand on her chest and gently pushed her down. "Lie back and enjoy it, Call. Let me do everything for you."

"Tease," she muttered, but she was smiling.

"It's only teasing if I don't come across."

"You'd better."

He smiled back at her. "I plan to." His mouth moved downwards, renewing his attention to the aching mounds of her breasts, tugging gently at her nipples with his teeth. She moaned and her hands clutched at his head. All too soon his kisses moved lower, over the skin of her stomach, and she felt him nudge her legs apart. No–he couldn't intend to do that, could he? In everything Call had thought she'd known about Johner, she had never had the faintest idea that he cared about giving a woman pleasure. If she'd ever thought about it–which she hadn't, of course not–she would have pictured him as the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am type, but it appeared that she was badly mistaken, because at that instant she felt him place a gentle kiss on the inside of her thigh, then his mouth was upon her.

Scalding was the word which leaped to her mind, the flood of sensation that engulfed her as his tongue moved on her clit and her body jerked, her mind helpless in the face of this primal response. His hands had felt magnificent touching her, but this...oh God, this was beyond belief, beyond anything at all. Johner's fingers dug into her hips, holding her down so that he could continue torturing her with this exquisite feeling that made her back arch and noises more befitting a cat in heat erupt from her mouth. A brief embarrassment at her own reaction brushed her, then was blasted away by the force of the climax that exploded in her belly, pouring over her like lava as a high, keening sound burst from her. "Johner, please. I need you to." Hearing her own voice made her think she'd gone hoarse from screaming.

"I will." He got his pants off as quickly as he could, his hands almost shaking with his own need. But it hadn't been that long since he'd been with a woman. It was Call. He craved her, had ever since the day she'd set foot on the freighter, such a little thing, defenseless with those big brown eyes, but there was more to it than the body. Jesus, he hated to admit it, but he'd fallen for her back then sometime, and there was no undoing it. No way was she getting rid of him now. He'd just have to convince her to fall for him. He could do that. Sure.

"Johner?" He'd been standing there naked for a few seconds, and Call had gotten a little worried. That far-off look on his face–but then she had no time to think as he lowered himself on top of her, the warmth of him surrounding her as surely as his arms. He rolled them both over until they lay on their sides, facing each other.

"This is probably going to hurt. I don't know if they designed you with a maidenhead or not. Seems a little silly, but who knows." He slid one hand between her thighs and began rubbing her clit with his thumb. She squirmed, then moaned as he inserted a finger. Her hips rocked as she found the rhythm he established. Johner caught her mouth with his as he withdrew his hand. "No, don't think they did. We won't have any trouble."

"Well, then, hurry the hell up. You're making me crazy." Combined frustration and lust forced the words out of her. She had had more than enough of all this teasing.

He laughed. "Whatever you say, ma'am."

Call rolled over onto her back and pulled him along with her. He positioned himself between her spread thighs and carefully moved into her. Looking up at him, she thought he was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She raised her hand and traced the horizontal Y on his left cheek, across the bridge of his nose, to where it finally ended at his hairline. Words trembled on her lips, and she realized with shock she had been about to tell him she loved him. Holy Christ! Had she lost her mind? When the hell had that happened? No matter how good all this felt, he was a leaving kind of man and nothing would shove him out the door faster than that particular sentiment, especially if it was true. Oh, shit, it was true. God dammit! But she would get over it, she knew it, and he would never know how she felt. She had that much pride.

He hadn't moved since he'd entered her, waiting for her body to adjust to him. But she had gone very still and had this odd look in her eyes. "Call? You okay?"

Her breath left her in a shuddering sigh and her eyes reverted to normal. "Yeah. I'm fine." Still, something lingered in her eyes that he wondered about.

"You sure?" Then she brought her hips up against him and his control broke. He drove himself into her, hard, drawing a gasp from her. It occurred to him to ask if she was all right, but her hands fastened on his hips and she matched his thrusts, gasps of effort escaping her, and nothing mattered except fucking her, pounding into the liquid heat of her all around him the way he had dreamed about for two years, so good, so good as she wrapped her legs around him and her nails scored down his back, her rosebud mouth open to take in air, her eyes closed in concentration. No, that was wrong. He wanted to see them, see the pleasure in them when she came. "Annalee. Open your eyes."

They did open then, her hands leaving his back for his face, her fingertips trailing over its contours. "I want you...want you." Her voice was the slightest whisper.

"You've got me. God, do you ever." His hips never stopped moving as she clutched at him, her hands sliding up and down his arms, the muscles in her legs suddenly tensing as she came apart underneath him with a cry that pushed him over the edge himself. All he could process was that the delight was burning him alive when his orgasm hit him, a tidal wave through every cell of his being, and he screamed her name as he poured himself into her. _Never like this, never like this,_ kept repeating in his mind.

They lay beside each other, gasping for breath. Call figured it was just about time for him to remember an early appointment tomorrow and leave. Well, she had known what she was getting into when she gave in to him, so she had no grounds for regret now. And, truthfully, she'd never be sorry for making love to Johner. That reminded her of something. "Johner? What's your first name?"

He burst out laughing. "Call, you're such a slut. You fucked a guy and didn't even get his first name."

"That is not amusing!" She whacked his upper arm with his fist, but she did see the humor in it. "You called me Annalee."

"Why not? It's your name."

"You just never did that before."

"We never had sex before, either." Johner put his arm around her shoulders and drew her toward him until she was snuggled close to his body. Call let her head rest on his chest. He didn't show any signs of leaving. Maybe he wanted to wait until after she'd gone to sleep.

"You know, if you need to leave for whatever reason, I understand." He tilted his head down to look at her and she pressed her forehead against him. "I know this was just a one-time thing."

"One of us knows that, then." As her head came up, surprise written clearly over her face, he grinned and pulled her up his body to kiss her. "Relax, Call. I'll still be here when you wake up in the morning. Good luck getting rid of me after this."

She hadn't been expecting that, so she did nothing except settle back down beside him and close her eyes. Nothing had felt as intense in years as the blossom of hope in her chest. No, please, don't do this to me, Johner, don't bring me back from the dead unless you mean it. Just let me fade away. But the emotion inside didn't listen to the anguish of the synth brain. It heard the undercurrent in his words and understood more than it did. Wrapped in the security of his arms, the android known as Annalee Call fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.


End file.
